Mexico arrests 17 in wave of killings

Prosecutor says gunmen linked to many of 200 drug deaths near border

IOAN GRILLO, Chronicle Foreign Service

Published
5:30 am CDT, Tuesday, September 13, 2005

MEXICO CITY - Federal authorities said Monday they have arrested a group of 17 gunmen who could be responsible for many of the 200 drug-related killings this year in the state of Tamaulipas that borders Texas.

The men were detained in a house in the Tamaulipas state capital of Victoria after a Sunday morning shootout that left two police officers dead, Mexico's top drug prosecutor, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, told a news conference.

Police also arrested four women in the house and found an arsenal that included six automatic rifles, six automatic pistols, three shotguns and three fragmentation grenades, authorities said. The prosecutor said without elaborating that there were indications the gunmen had carried out a series of execution-style killings.

Fifteen of the detainees were flown to Mexico City for questioning by federal investigators, he said. Two of the suspects were seriously wounded in the shootout and were being treated in Victoria.

The wave of violence in Tamaulipas state stems from a turf war between the Gulf Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel for control of drug-smuggling routes into Texas along the Interstate 35 corridor. More than half of the killings in the state have occurred in Nuevo Laredo, a city of 500,000 across the border from Laredo, Texas.

Investigators have said that some of the killings were carried out by the Zetas, a group of gunmen led by former army commandos who serve as the Gulf Cartel's enforcers. Santiago did not identify which cartel allegedly employed the arrested men.

Across Mexico, more than 1,000 drug-related killings have been recorded since Jan. 1, according to the Mexico City newspaper El Universal. Most of the slayings happened near the U.S. border in Tamaulipas and in the Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa.

The violence has prompted the U.S. State Department to advise American travelers about the dangers of venturing into Nuevo Laredo and other cities on the Mexico-Texas border.